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IAEVG INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2015 Tsukuba, JAPAN

ARACD / IAEVG Joint Session

18 September 2015

Symposium

Career Education in Asia

ARACD Imm Past President Dr Lui Hah Wah Elena Republic of Singapore

Dr Lui Hah Wah Elena 雷榎华博士

Dr Lui is a former Associate Professorial Fellow in the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She has three postgraduate degrees from Michigan State University (PhD, Ed Specialist & MA) and a B.Soc.Sc (Social Work) degree from Chinese University of Hong Kong. Currently, she has part-time consultancy work at NIE, UniSim, KLC and Lions Befrienders. She was the coordinator of the NIE MEd – Guidance & Counselling programme (2005 – 2010) and the Diploma in School Counselling (2005-2006). She lectured and supervised teachers and counsellors in postgraduate and in-service training programmes. Her research interests are mainly in adolescents’ self-esteem and well-being, career guidance and lifelong learning. She chaired the Career & Education 2015 show held on 12-14 March at Suntec, Singapore.

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“Career Development” including “Career Education”

The term “Career Development” in this speech covers policies, provisions, programmes and activities of vocational education, career education, career guidance and career counselling. In this 20 minutes’ speech I have five key points to present and share with the conference delegates / participants. Due to time constraint, there may be some oversight and missing certain details, therefore I sincerely apologize for the errors and mistakes unintentionally made in my script, power-point slides and handout.

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1. The British and American influences on career development in the past 50 years of Republic of Singapore.

• In the mid1960s, influenced by the British, some Singapore secondary schools had career clubs guided by the career masters and the Ministry of Education (MOE) had a Guidance Unit focusing on occupations information. From the late 1980s to 2000s, the MOE was actively promoting career guidance, under the Pastoral Care and Career Guidance Section. In regards to training teachers for Pastoral Care and Career Guidance (PCCG), the National Institute of Education conducted in-service courses and diplomas in the past 3 decades.

• In 1987 – 1988, Mr Peter Lang and Dr Anthony Watts (from U.K.) were invited by MOE to conduct training and consultancy in Pastoral Care and Career Guidance respectively. PCCG has been an integral part of Singapore education since then. The “Whole School Approach” used in Singapore schools aims to enhance the all-round development of students through pastoral care, guidance & counselling.

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Career Guidance has 4 components: Career Self – awareness, Career Awareness,

Career Decision-making and Career Transition.

• In the 1990s, lots of resources were developed by MOE, including Career Education Resource Pack, Life Skills Pack, videos, CDs, etc. The main source of reference was the Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Programs designed by Dr Norman Gysbers, Dr Mary Heppner and Associates (Missouri, U.S.)

• In recent years Singapore has an emphasis on developing the talents and potentials of the young. Therefore educational and career guidance, counseling and pastoral care have become the important support services in all schools. Each individual’s plan for his / her life career development will have an impact on the socio-economic development of our society, every individual counts. The care for each one’s future is eventually the care for our collective future.

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2. The new initiatives of skills upgrading and social economic development of Singapore, some brief information on the “SkillsFuture” programmes of Singapore Government http://www.moe.gov.sg/skillsfuture/ The SkillsFuture Council is a Tripartite Council chaired by Deputy Prime Minister

(DPM) Tharman Shanmugaratnam to take forward key recommendations under both the Applied Study in Polytechnics and ITE Review (ASPIRE) and the Continuing Education and Training Masterplan (CET) 2020. He said, “Our future must be about mastery of skills, in every job, and enabling every Singaporean to develop themselves to the fullest. We are going to put full effort into this, and it involves everyone - Government, employers, unions and all of us as individuals.” SkillsFuture Credit -To empower Singapore Citizens (SCs) in their learning and skills development, the Government will create a SkillsFuture Credit (an initial credit of $500) for all SCs aged 25 and above to deepen their skills in existing fields and to broaden their horizon in areas outside their current fields. Enhanced Internships - The post-secondary institutions, in collaboration with industry partners, will enhance internships to provide students with a more meaningful experience and better support for structured learning at the workplace. This is in line with the national SkillsFuture movement to develop an integrated, high quality system of education, training and career development that responds to constantly evolving industry needs. 6

The future of Career Development in Singapore is very promising because of “SkillsFuture”

3. The mutual collaboration and cooperation of career development professionals and academics, using ARACD (Asia Regional Association of Career Development) and International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) as an example. • ARAVEG, affiliated to IAVEG (Chaired by Dr Bernhard Jenschke, Germany),

had Dr Naoki Tsukuda as Executive Director in the 1990s. In 1997 the 8th conference was organized by the Chinese Guidance Association, Taipei, ROC; and co-chaired by Taiwan Normal University professors Lin Hsintai and Wu Wutien. The ARAVEG general assembly approved the change of its name to ARACD, and the proposal to hold the next conference in Singapore.

• In March 2001, the 9th ARACD Conference “Integrating living and learning in work” was hosted by the Singapore Professional Centre (SPC) – a federation of professional associations including Singapore Association for Counselling and Singapore Association of Social Workers. In the new era, a Career Development (CD) practitioner has to embrace challenges in the real world as well as cyber world, tune into social trends.

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ARAVEG, affiliated to IAVEG, at the 1997 Taipei conference which was co-chaired by Dr Lin Hsintai and Dr Wu Wutien, the General Assembly approved the change of its name to ARACD, and the proposal to hold the next conference in Singapore.

In March 2001, the 9th ARACD Conference “Integrating living and learning in work” was hosted by the Singapore Professional Centre and sponsored by the Ministry of Education. The sub-themes are School to Work, Stay in Work and Back to Work.

Former key member of ARACD, Dr Josefine O. Santamaria (Philippines), presented a paper “New roles and core competencies of career practitioners in the information age” in the 1997 conference.

She said Career Development (CD) practitioners should fulfil 8 new roles: facilitator, appraiser, forecaster, coach and adviser, counsellor, enabler, program designer, marketer; and have competencies in, business, interpersonal relations, intellectual, marketing, and technical knowledge and skills. In July 2013 Prof Muhamad Surya had the support of the University of PGRI Adi Buana in Surabaya, Indonesia to host the conference with the theme “New Careers in New Era”. Prof Surya became the ARACD president. Keynote speakers from overseas were Professor Takao Mimura, Dr Bernhard Jenschke and Dr Lui hah Wah Elena. The proceedings of this International Conference is published and available in website http://digilib.unipasby.ac.id/gdl.php?mod=browse&op=read&id=gdlhub--luihahwahe-477

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4. The possibilities for future projects of career education, career guidance and career counselling in Asia and beyond. Suggestions for career development conferences in the IT and Infocomm enhanced environment to be explored and discussed in this symposium. • In 1987 Dr Sim Wong Kooi chaired a research team in the Institute of

Education to develop a computer-aided interactive career guidance package “JOBS” which was upgraded, in the 21st century, to a web-based programme “OSCARS”. In 2007, Dr Scott Solberg and research team (University of Wisconsin, USA) worked closely with MOE Guidance Officers to develop the education and career guidance e-portal, “ecareers.sg”. Before the closure of “OSCAR” in 2009, its data base of close to 300 occupations was transferred to form a good foundation of the occupation information module of “ecareers.sg” https://ecareers.sg.

• The future e-portal for Singaporeans will be an on-line individual learning portfolio (from 2017). In the IT and Infocom enhanced environment, collaboration in career development research can be conducted in Singapore and the region. Research findings can be shared in conferences, in real world and maybe cyberspace, and the research topics to explore are unlimited, just to suggest five:- 11

The research topics to explore are unlimited, just to suggest five:- Lifelong learning and employability Multi-tasking, knowledge-based and transferable skills Internationalization in workplaces Team work and cultural sensitivity Internship and Service-learning

In guiding and mentoring students in their internships as well as career and life planning, CD practitioners can engage them in lifelong learning as well as Service-Learning. I had a synergized notion of Service-Learning, a cognitive circle: Learn-to-Serve and Serve-to-Learn in both personal growth and career development. (Lui, 2004). “Service-Learning” is useful for career exploration, not simply “doing voluntary work”. And I hope to see that CD practitioners / counsellors have good heads, hearts and hands—heads that are open-minded, tuned-in, keen to learn and resourceful, hearts that are warm, loving and caring, and hands that are capable in multi-tasking and ever-ready for teamwork and network. I would like to invite you all to partake in “lifelong service-learning”, a journey that is purposeful, fulfilling and wonderful. (Lui, 2007).

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5. Selected references and resources in publications and websites. There are hundreds and thousands of resources for career development, career education, career guidance and counselling, for the convenient use of this symposium’s participants, I have selected the following publications and websites, hope there are useful to you. Thank you and best wishes. Singapore Ministry of Education -

SkillsFuture http://www.moe.gov.sg/skillsfuture/ Education and Career Guidance http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/programmes/social-emotional-learning/education-career-guidance/ ARACD 2013 Proceedings of the International Conference on New Careers in New Era (Surabaya Indonesia, July 5-6th, 2013) http://digilib.unipasby.ac.id/gdl.php?mod=browse&op=read&id=gdlhub--luihahwahe-477

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Norman Gysbers, Mary Heppner and Associates (Missouri, U.S.) Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Programs: A Rich History and a Bright Future. Professional School Counseling, 2001 – ERIC (Education Resources Information Center)

Gysbers, N., & Henderson, P. (1988). Developing and managing your school guidance program. Alexandria, VA: American Association for Counseling and Development. Gysbers, N. (1990). Comprehensive guidance programs that work. Ann Arbor, MI: ERIC Counseling and Personnel Services Clearinghouse. Gysbers, N. C., Hepper, M. J., & Johnston, J. A. (2003). Career counseling—Processes, issues and techniques (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education. Watts, AG (1999). Reshaping career development for the 21st century. CeGS Occasional Paper. Derby, UK: Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby. Watts, AG (2000). Career development and public policy. Career Development Quarterly, 48(4), Watts , AG , Hughes , D. and Haslam , D. 1999. Closer working? : A review of working relationships between Careers Service Organisations and Higher Education Careers Advisory Services, Derby: Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby.

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Santamaria, J. O. (2000). Life career planning workbook (3rd ed.). Philippines: Career Systems, Inc. Solberg, Scott (2007). On the shoulders of giants: Making vocational psychology fit for modern times. Research Brief, Center on Education and Work, University of Wisconsin, U.S. Spring 2007. (http://www.cew.wisc.edu/ )

Lui, H. W. E. (2004). Chairing SAGE Counselling Centre—A lifelong service learning journey. In Counselling older persons, Singapore: SAGE Counselling Centre. Lui, H. W. E. (Ed.). (2008). .05 Significantly your - A guide to reflection on lifelong learning. Singapore: Candid Creation Publishing. Lui, H.W.E. & Wong, S.S. (Eds.). (2007). Youth Guidance - Issues, interventions and reflections. Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall. Lui, H.W.E. & Wong S.S. (Eds.). (2006). Reflections on Counseling - Developing practice in schools. Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall.

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Best Wishes &